Is there a potential path for renewal for traditional news organizations struggling to survive and thrive in the digital age? “The News Landscape in 2014: Transformed or Diminished? Formulating a Game Plan for Survival in the Digital Age,” co-authored by Penelope Muse Abernathy, UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication Knight Chair in Digital Media Economics and Journalism, and Richard Foster, Senior Faculty Fellow with Yale University’s School of Management, analyzes the situation from the perspectives of shareholder, journalist and economist. Read more here.

The Knight Community Information Challenge has chosen 24 innovative ideas—submitted by community foundations nationwide—as its second-year winners who met the challenge with projects that support local news, while creatively reaching a changing audience. Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the five-year, $24 million initiative emphasizes the importance of the free flow of information. Each winning project proposes ground-breaking uses of new media and technology to keep residents informed and engaged in their respective communities. View the winners list here.

Join us for a live question-and-answer session on the Knight Community Information Challenge—a matching grant program that helps community and place-based foundations fund local news and information projects.

On Tuesday the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced a new contest to develop online and mobile applications that will help people improve their lives through better access to government/community info and services.

The Apps for Inclusion Challenge “encourages technology innovators to review government and community services and develop tools that will improve lives by making it easier for citizens to receive these services through mobile and online applications.”

This announcement came during an event co-hosted by the Knight Foundation in which the FCC previewed its forthcoming National Broadband Plan. The FCC will be “in partnership” with the Knight Foundation on Apps for Inclusion.

Contest entry criteria and deadlines have not yet been announced. However, the Knight Foundation will commit a total of $100,000 in prize money. A panel of experts will review applications and pick winners. The public will have a vote through several “people’s choice awards.”

Are you a woman with a great idea for a new web site, mobile news service, or other entrepreneurial initiative that would create interactive opportunities to engage, inspire and improve news and information in a geographic community or a community of interest? J-Lab’s New Media Women Entrepreneurs grant program for startup projects might help you launch…

Eligible projects must:

Spearheaded by women.

Launch (at least a live beta) within 10 months.

Have a plan for continuing after initial funding has ended.

Have journalistic value.

Open to independent projects or those from traditional media organizations. Personal blogs or one-time documentaries are not eligible.

Frustrated by slow, convoluted bureaucracies? Just watch the net and wait. And wait. New research from the Pew Internet and American Life Project indicates that the internet will make businesses and government agencies much more responsive and efficient—by 2020. That’s what 72% of nearly 900 “technology stakeholders and critics” surveyed by Pew believe…

Why will these improvements take so long, or maybe even longer? Powerful bureaucratic forces will push back against such transformation. Expect continuing tension in disruptive times.

In contrast, about one-fourth of respondents believe “By 2020, governments, businesses, non‐profits and other mainstream institutions will primarily retain familiar 20th century models for conduct of relationships with citizens and consumers online and offline.”

When it comes to updating their skill sets, editors in the trade press (business-to-business publications) mostly must fend for themselves. This is according to a recent survey of 273 trade press editors conducted by the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) and the Medill School/Media Management Center at Northwestern University…

About 80% of respondents reported getting one day or less of company-sponsored digital training in 2009. Over one third reported receiving no digital training whatsoever from their employers. Two thirds of respondents reported the training they did received was inadequate. And 27% of respondents rated their person digital-media skills as “behind” or “way behind” the rate at which their publications’ brands are transitioning to digital media.